Monday, November 24, 2008

Who Will Win It All

Part 2 of 2

In our first part we visited the reasons why a Big 12 team probably won’t win the BCS title based on the characteristics of past BCS champions.

So who will win it, at least based on past BCS champion statistical characteristics?

Of the teams that meet the defensive oriented criteria of past champions, and are still eligible, it comes down to three –

Alabama, Florida and Southern Cal

In the study of common past characteristics, we can expect the BCS title winner to have a Scoring Defense in the top 11 (average of 5.6 rank, or 14 ppg), a Passing Efficiency Defense in the top 17 (average of 7th ranked, or 95.15) and a Total Defense in the top 15 (average of 8th ranked, or 281 ypg).

Our contenders and their stats –

Alabama

Scoring Defense – 6th ranked, 12.5 ppg
Passing Eff Defense – 7th ranked, 97.71
Total Defense – 3rd ranked, 255.6 ypg

Florida

Scoring Defense – 3rd ranked, 12 ppg
Passing Eff Defense -6th ranked, 97.65
Total Defense – 9th ranked, 278.7 ypg

Southern Cal

Scoring Defense – 1st ranked, 8.3 ppg
Passing Eff Defense – 1st ranked, 84.34
Total Defense – 2nd ranked, 222.5 ypg

Interestingly enough Penn State would have met all these criteria, but it seems they are out of the running.

Depending on the outcome of the next few weeks, there is a high probability at least one of the above will appear in Miami come January, with an excellent chance to continue the trend of dominating defenses of BCS Champions.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Makes you wonder if a playoff would ruin the drama of these last few weeks? I'm thinking we should at least schedule a more highly ranked opponent than the Citadel, next years even worse. In years when the SEC is weak we need that road game OOC against a national power to help with the rankings.

Anonymous said...

You would normally expect Miami and FSU to be tough enough and not expect the SEC to actually be down.

Anonymous said...

Even so, games like Citadel suck. Its not fun for the fans

Henry Louis Gomez said...

We should never schedule a 1AA school EVER AGAIN. No reason to when FIU and other similar schools are available. This almost cost us a chance at the dumb MNC in 2006. If we win out it won't cost us this year but our computer rankings are taking a beating right now.

Trader Rick said...

Where does our opponent in the BCS Championship, Oklahoma, rank in these stats?

skigator93 said...

It will never cost us a trip to the BCS Championship Game. Losing games to Auburn and Ole Miss cost you trips to the BCS.

Anonymous said...

I've got to believe that the reason USC is ranked so highly is because the teams they are playing are offensively retarded. I know i am going to sound like a total homer by saying this but if the gators played in the Pac10 they would be ranked higher in almost every category.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous~thing is ya just can't say that cause we'll never know. A matchup would be a dream and probably what rankles Pete Carroll cause he'd like a playoff so much. It would be great to see the Gators play out there but the SECs never had much luck playing on the West Coast so I don't know.